Santa's Coming! Time To Clean Out The Toy Closet!

You know the sight, right? An exciting pile of toys beneath the Christmas tree that soon enough become a pile of toys…in your kid's room! Where will they all go? Well, even though we are far, far from Spring, this may be just the time for a little Spring cleaning: before Santa comes. Here are some of our own time-worn tips to get that toy closet cleared out before the new gifts arrive.

1. Touch and evaluate every toy, and make piles, from 5 Tips For Cleaning Out The Toy Bin: "I make several piles: dump, donate/give to friends, keep, sell. Our biggest pile is always donate or give to friends. These piles consisted of things that I had doubles of as a result of gifts (including lots of books) or things that weren't age appropriate. "Dump" is reserved for broken items. "Sell" ended being an empty pile."

2. Deal with the piles as quickly as you can, to avoid "clogging" up the house, also from 5 Tips For Cleaning Out The Toy Bin: "Once you make the piles, you need to deal with them. The donation and dump piles should be taken to their respective destinations. Then reorganize what you've got left and put everything away before stopping."

3. If doing this task is too overwhelming for you, consider reviewing our "Toy Cure", head over to all the info on the Toy Cure here:"You should always be on the lookout for toys that your kids no longer use or that are broken, but a few times a year we recommend you dedicate time to do a really thorough editing job. The 7-Day Toy Cure is here to help."

4. Try removing some toys and putting them into rotation, reader ameab's comment from How Do You Keep Your Kids' Toys Organized:"Toy Rotation! It's totally brilliant. When your kids are young (starting at about 7-8 months) you should start the toy rotation. It's a system of 10 or so toys that hit all the major developmental categories for a child. (Look here for more info on toy rotation at The Little Stories.)

5. Do not allow yourself to buy new storage!, from Institute A Toy Storage Limit: "When it comes to getting organized, what you need really isn't more containers. It's less, more carefully edited, stuff."

6. And my own addition to this list, my own goal for this year: not buy toys I don't already have a home for. That means: less giant plastic junk, more building on sets and collections we already have, and more space savvy toys.

Is your kids' room in dire need of space for Santa? How do you plan to get Santa's presents-ready? Share your own tips below!